whitsmom

My son-n-law called and because we booked earlier, we still get our VOOM free. How long ago did you book your cruise?

whitsmom i will  grab the 4 days of cruise compass as well as copies of the menus  for the  four days and send them to matt to post 

Thank you in advance!

I too am interested in the "goody" bag. I would love to do that too.

While I do not remove my automatic gratuities, I have also starting giving my room attendant a "treat" every day.  A candy bar, some kind of nuts or whatever I brought.....just left it on the foot of the bed every morning with a note to the attendant telling him or her to please take it and enjoy.  if I hadn't of put that note there, they would not have touched it.
 
Then it becomes like a little game....what's today's treat going to be ?  On my last cruise (Allure), my attendant (Rod) would see us leaving or b'fast and say....ooohh...you're leaving.  I can't wait to go and see what my treat or the day is !  He was sooo cute.
 
The last day he got a treat plus a nice tip.  He did so much extra work for us that week.....parties in the room and eating out on the balcony.  He definitely deserved it....and I get a kick out of doing it !

Fantastic idea.
 
Thank you so much for that information!!  We'll definitely do that.

We celebrated birthdays and anniversaries on our Thanksgiving cruise ... My wife and I share a date with my parents for an anniversary and three of us are November babies.
 
They did not do anything automatically but we informed the wait staff and on the last formal night they brought out 2 "anniversary" deserts and 3 "birthday" deserts .... not huge cakes or anything might have actually been the standard desert of the night but they had each one with a little frosted message and a candle.

Go with the Aquatheatre.  I love that they can view the shows and yet have an ocean view for privacy.

I see what you're saying Todd.  Like JT said, there'd be a risk involved but the thing I always say about smuggling alcohol onboard is even if you are able to do it, you'd be relegated to drinking it in your stateroom (since you could not bring it anywhere else to have onboard), and I don't see much fun in that.  Just my two cents.

Same here. When I had the drink package on Brilliance never had felt like I was being passed over for people paying "cash".
 
 
I agree that this issue is most problematic at the pool bars during the day.  Good luck getting a drink quickly from any of the pool bars on a sea day between 11am-4pm.  Then again, I find better luck flagging down a waiter and having them get me a drink in that manner.

We have always done the automatic gratuities, but we've always giving our cabin attendant and servers additional tips based on the type of services they have given us. But I must say we have never had bad service.

I just read on a Cruise Critic message board that the Majesty of the Seas will not be getting the water slides and DreamWorks Experience.  I am so disappointed as we are booked for August 1st and taking our 8 & 10 years old granddaughters and they were so excited to have those features.
 
Why did they elect to leave those off of the upgrades?

If it were me, I would wait for Majesty to return from her dry dock and then see what the status of Voom is.  I wouldn't expect to see free voom on a reservation, because it was not a booking incentive, just something RC decided to offer on her.

I would expect it to be free based on the offer when you booked.  As silly as it may seem, the website is not necessarily indicative of RC's policies.

What are you wanting out of an Alaska cruise? You really can't compare the two as they are completely different itineraries. If you want to minimize travel expenses and just see some of the inside passage, the Explorer is the ship for you. If you want to see the most of Alaska, then Radiance is the only choice.

i will be on magesty  may 23 2016 shorty after her dry dock   i plan on periscoping the ship free voom , i was disappointed by the scaling back but i  still committed to giving her a chance.  i will miss enchantment adult solarium pool .  

From the descriptions so far, I think we will be just fine. Thank you so much for the links and input, it has really helped.

I should note that out of our past cruises...we chose to be on the Century (we were married while on this cruise with a group of 20 family & friends) and the Dream. The Carnival cruises were to see my sister who worked for them for 5 years and wouldn't have been something we would have chosen for ourselves (but any cruise is better than staying home).
 
That all said the more classic feel of the ship sounds more in line w/ the Century (which we really loved) and while the specialty restaurants would have been nice, I'm not sure we would have opted for any of them since our kids are picky eaters and it is a short cruise (on a longer one we might opt to do one night w/ just the two of us...but not on a shorter trip).
 
The free internet sounds intriguing! ;-)

 

"She said that RC didn't care where we slept on the cruise, just that they were booked that way."
 
The company can only control that passengers are not allowed in crew cabins, and most crew members are not allowed in passenger cabins.
 
But they have no control over what cabins passengers end up in. You can enter any cabin if the registered guest allows it. Security does not come around at 3 am doing cabin checks.  Unless you are talking about children, if they are found in public areas after curfew security will be knocking on your cabin door. 

My TA explained to me that RC required each cabin to have one person over 21 listed in it at purchase. (We have adjoining cabins w/ our 10yo and 15yo)
She said that RC didn't care where we slept on the cruise, just that they were booked that way. 

I have read elsewhere that you can get extra key cards for any cabin. From what I understand of the process... I would set up your grandson's cabin with whatever card he will be charging on, and then add a card to your cabin for your husband. 

Can Hubby and I be linked on our credit card and our grandson be linked to a different one?

 

Yes every person traveling has three options, credit card/debit card, cash deposit, no account. 

 

For children (or anyone) They can have a key card that cannot be used for purchases, or just has a drink package on it. Really for children no reason they should be able to make purchases on the ship. The parents can make any needed purchases within their account.  Reynaline always has her own account when we cruise but she has never charged anything.... always puts any purchases on my card.

 

My 2nd question:  Do they punch a hole in the room key card so that it can be used with a lanyard?

 

They do not, some of the newer systems cannot have holes punched into them. I believe your ship has a standard card system. If you want the card punched Guest Services can do this for you.

Note that the gloves are to protect me from cross contamination from the shared serving utensils after having washed and sanitizing my hands.

I don't have any problem washing my hands or using sanitizer. I wash my hand in the bathroom, I use the hand towel to open doors, I sanitize into a dining area, leaving a dining area, and sometimes when moving into a new location. It does not feel like an inconvenience to me at all, it's about keeping the ship and it's passengers as healthy as possible.
 
If you think about it, in the buffet everyone is handling the same serving utensils. Wait staff are picking up glasses, cleaning dishes, bringing you drinks. It's general health and welfare. We all get shots and inoculations to ensure a healthier populace, same goes for washing hands.
 
But the song gets stuck in my head!!!!!!!

You can arrange the grandchildren any way you wish; don't think that you're forced to keep them in the rooms as booked.  Do as you wish.
 
Regarding the hole punch, just take your card to Guest Services and they'll punch a hole in the card for you.  You can even buy the lanyards in the gift shops if you don't bring them with you.  For the 8 and 10 year old, just take them up to Adventure Ocean and they'll punch their Sea Pass and give them a lanyard for free.

My grands 20, 18, 10 & 8
 
When we booked we weren't sure if we could put the two oldest in their own JS (I guess the under 21 thing is if they are cruising without parents).  All our JS are side-by-side.  I guess we should have asked first...  If that is the case, can we move people around during check in?  The following is how we booked:
 
JS: Me and my granddaughters (10 & 8)
JS:  Daughter, son-n-law & grandson (18)
JS:  Hubby and grandson (20)

You can pre-order when available if you want.
 
As far as which photos will be eligible to be included in the package, then yes, as you describe it, those photos would qualify. Even if it were just you and your grandkids, or just your husband and daughter, that would work, too. You don't have to both be in it; just at least one of you needs to be in the shot.